Peter O’Toole? Edmund Kean? Edmund Gwenn? Donald Crisp? George Seaton? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: One of my friends is an aspiring comedian, and he enjoys telling an anecdote about a gifted character actor who delivered a famously incisive line about playing comic roles while lying on his deathbed. A visitor approached the actor who was …
Author Archives: quoteresearch
I Take the Punch Bowl Away Just When the Party is Getting Good
Arthur F. Burns? William McChesney Martin? G. William Miller? Paul A. Volcker? Dear Quote Investigator: The U.S. economy has experienced two large bubbles in recent years in technology stocks and in real estate. These gyrations in the market reminded me of an old comment from a previous director of the Federal Reserve. He said his …
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I Do Not Want to Predict the Future. I Want to Prevent It
Frank Herbert? Ray Bradbury? Theodore Sturgeon? Fred Pohl? Dear Quote Investigator: I once read an interview with a science fiction writer in which he was asked about predicting the future. The interviewer was disappointed that some of the technological developments heralded in science fiction never seemed to actually happen. The response from the author was …
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Quote Origin: Be Nice to People on Your Way Up. You’ll Meet Them On Your Way Down
Jimmy Durante? Wilson Mizner? Walter Winchell? George Raft? Question for Quote Investigator: Sometimes clichés become clichés because they express important truths. I think this is an example: Be nice to those you meet on the way up because you will meet them on the way down Can you determine who first came up with this …
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Never Miss a Chance to Have Sex or Appear On Television
Gore Vidal? Lewis H. Lapham? Fictional? Anonymous? Dear Quote Investigator: When I watch reality television shows today I can only conclude that some people will do anything to be on television. This fits the advice the famous author Gore Vidal apparently gave: Never turn down an opportunity to have sex or to be on television …
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When I Was a Boy of Fourteen, My Father Was So Ignorant
Mark Twain? Apocryphal? Dear Quote Investigator: I am interested in a fantastic quotation that I always thought was from the pen of Mark Twain: When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was …
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Kissing Marilyn Monroe is Like Kissing Hitler
Tony Curtis? Fictional? Dear Quote Investigator: Tony Curtis was a wonderful actor, and I was saddened when he passed away in 2010. For years I have wondered about a quotation that he supposedly said. The story goes that he was asked what it was like to kiss Marilyn Monroe and he said: Kissing Marilyn was …
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Theatrical Review: I Saw It Under Adverse Conditions. The Curtain Was Up
Groucho Marx? Walter Winchell? George S. Kaufman? George Jean Nathan? Dear Quote Investigator: When a friend asked me my opinion of a terrible play that I saw recently I answered: I did not like it, but perhaps this judgment is unfair. I saw it under adverse conditions — the curtain was up. Eventually she coaxed …
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Never Let Schooling Interfere With Your Education
Mark Twain? Grant Allen? Dear Quote Investigator: I am still in school and that is probably why the following quote attributed to Mark Twain appeals to me so much: I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. Your blog posts about Twain quotations reveal that the information on the internet about what he …
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Definition: Anecdote – A Revealing Account of an Incident That Never Occurred in the Life of Some Famous Person
Evan Esar? Jan Harold Brunvand? Bennett Cerf? Dear Quote Investigator: I was speaking with a friend about all the misinformation and misattributions in the world of quotations, and he said that he was familiar with this phenomenon of unreliability because he enjoys reading about urban-legends. He also gave his own quotation on this theme which …